Superstar CEOs like Apple's Steve Jobs and Viacom's Sumner Redstone often attract celebrity-level attention linking their personal lives the health of their respective companies. Today a rather interesting data set popped in The Wall Street Journal regarding the impact of the personal lives of CEOs on their companies. Among the gems the collection of studies revealed were the following info-nuggets:
-Profits drop by one-fifth two years after the death of a CEO's child
-Profits dip by 15 percent after the death of a spouse
-The death of a mother-in-law offers minor upturns
-Stocks of companies run by CEOs with megamansions underperform the market
-Narcissistic execs take bigger risks and create larger profit swings
Those of us that have followed Silicon Valley for years won't find much surprising here, but the academic touch backing up what we've always known about rockstar CEOs goes a long way towards explaining Larry Ellison's (pictured right) Japanese fortress and Larry Page's helicopter. You can peruse the various studies here and here…
